Tax agent Jacob Thomas and his companies Accounting Solutions Australia Pty Ltd (ASAPL) and Taxation and Accounting Australia Pty Ltd (TAAPL), had their registrations terminated after we discovered that Jacob Thomas and ASAPL had breached multiple items of the Code of Professional Conduct (Code). Jacob Thomas was the sole director and supervising tax agent of ASAPL, and also a director and sole supervising tax agent of TAAPL. Jacob Thomas and ASAPL breached:  

• Code item 1 by failing to act honestly and with integrity. Jacob Thomas misled us by advising that Jeremy Thomas, his son, had his employment terminated with ASAPL following our previous decision in 2021 to terminate Jeremy Thomas’ tax agent registration and impose a 5-year ban prohibiting him from making an application for registration. We discovered that Jeremy Thomas’ employment was not terminated and ASAPL continued to employ and allow him access to the tax agent portal. It had been found that Jeremy Thomas posed a distinct risk to clients, their financial affairs and the integrity of the tax system.

• Code item 7 by failing to provide a competent tax agent service by lodging 15 income tax returns (ITRs) for ASAPL’s clients and not ensuring there was sufficient evidence to substantiate work-related expense claims and other deductions. This resulted in the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) auditing these clients and imposing tax shortfalls.

• Code item 9 by failing to take reasonable care in ascertaining these clients’ state of affairs.

• Code item 10 by failing to take reasonable care in applying taxation laws correctly.

As a result of these Code breaches, our Board Conduct Committee (BCC) found Jacob Thomas ceased to be a fit and proper person to be registered. The BCC terminated his and ASAPL’s registrations and imposed a 4-year ban prohibiting them both from making an application for registration. The BCC also terminated TAAPL’s registration for ceasing to meet the registration requirement that each company director is a fit and proper person. Jacob Thomas, ASAPL and TAAPL each applied for stays of the decisions, which were refused by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT), therefore supporting the BCC’s decisions.

In refusing the stays, AAT Senior Member (SM) Lazanas agreed that there was an overwhelming public interest in refusing the stays because of the serious nature of the breaches and the recidivist nature of Jacob Thomas’ conduct. Given he was on notice of several TPB investigations and multiple sanctions previously imposed on himself and his companies, SM Lazanas stated that ‘despite this they continued to adopt a cavalier approach. The need to protect the public, including any prospective clients, and the preservation of the integrity of the tax profession strongly outweigh any possible damage to the applicants’.

Date of Effect: 29/03/2023